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Tebow, a Careful Evangelical

Tim Tebow frequently tells his life story, as a son of Christian missionaries, in prisons, including this 2009 appearance before youth inmates at the Lake City Correctional Facility in Florida.Credit
Rob C. Witzel/The Gainesville Sun

Tim Tebow may be the most popular Christian in sports. He is a cross-cultural phenomenon, a preacher in a football player’s body.

Whether religion is at the core of his popularity is debatable. But between the caricatures on one end and the deification on the other end, those with an opinion of Tebow — and that counts just about everyone — may not have an understanding of his religious beliefs beyond the broad label of evangelical Christian.

As he demonstrates in interviews and throughout his book, in his frequent appearances at churches and prisons, and even at his hugely anticipated and nationally televised introductory news conference for the Jets on Monday, Tebow is far from a firebrand evangelical.

With unflappable optimism and politeness, using his gift for artfully preaching without sounding preachy, Tebow mostly discusses his life story — a child of Southern Baptist missionaries in the Philippines who prayed for a son to become a preacher, named for Timothy in the Bible. Football, Tebow says, is his platform for greater good. He talks about the charitable works of his family and his own foundation. And he repeatedly invokes Jesus Christ’s name and the good that comes from committing to a life lived by his creed.

“Tebow is part of a movement of ‘cosmopolitan Christians,’ ” said D. Michael Lindsay, the president of Gordon College and the author of “Faith in the Halls of Power,” a book about American evangelicals. “They’re more media savvy than their forebears and they understand the importance of building bridges. They speak more about what they’re for than what they’re against. It speaks for that segment of the evangelical community that wants to spend energy on things for the common good rather than be a lightning rod.”

That appears to be Tebow’s approach.

“My belief is that his goal is to indeed be inclusive and not divisive,” Nathan Whitaker, who was a co-author of Tebow’s book, “Through My Eyes,” wrote in an e-mail. He declined to discuss Tebow’s beliefs more specifically.

On Monday, five days after being traded from the Denver Broncos, and nearly being traded to his hometown Jacksonville Jaguars, Tebow spent most of his introductory news conference at Jets headquarters in Florham Park, N.J., discussing his perceived role on the team.

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Tebow has professed his faith in many forums, including at a Georgia church before about 4,000 people.Credit
Mickey Noah/BaptistPress.com

The subject of faith — and any mention of Jesus — did not arise until the 16th question. It seemed strange, given all of the curiosity and debate over Tebow’s methods of on-field proselytizing — from biblical verses on his cheeks; to his kneeling in prayer after touchdowns (since christened as a verb: Tebowing); to his habit of open postgame news conferences by thanking “first and foremost, my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Asked to articulate his religious beliefs, he demurred, slightly.

“We’re at a press conference for a football team, so it’s not exactly the platform to get up here and share everything you believe,” said Tebow, who attended a Southern Baptist church with his family in Jacksonville. “But I have no problem, ever, sharing what I believe. I’m a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, and that is first and foremost the most important thing in my life. For me it’s about having a relationship with Christ. And that’s pretty much it. That’s the basis of what I believe in.”

In his book, Tebow wrote that he was 6 when “I knew I was ready to accept Jesus into my heart.” That afternoon, he wrote, the family celebrated the event by going to Epcot at Disney World.

Despite his age at the time, Tebow has specific memories of the awakening: of being in bed, scared he would go to hell if something happened the next day.

“So I got down on my knees right there on the couch and I prayed with my mom,” he told a Georgia church congregation in 2010. “And I asked Jesus to come into my heart. And right there in that instant, I knew that I had just went from darkness to light. And I knew that my eternity was sealed in heaven, by putting my trust in Jesus Christ.”

“God has a special plan for each person,” Tebow told a congregation two years ago. “He has a special plan for your life. God has a poem written out for you and written out for me. And it’s our job, and it should be our goal, to follow that poem, and follow God’s plan for our life, because regardless of whether you think it or not, that’s the best way to live.”

He speaks often of the “dash” on a tombstone, between the year of birth and the year of death, and making that dash mean something significant. He frequently tells the story of a woman who approached him and said he must consider his life a success, given all his football accomplishments.

Tebow said yes, but it had nothing to do with winning national championships, the Heisman Trophy or being famous. It has everything to do with his relationship with Jesus Christ, he says.

“That’s why I can stand in front of you today and say my life is a success,” Tebow told prisoners at Lake City Correctional Facility in Florida while still in college. “Because I know who holds my future. And I know where I’m spending eternity.”

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Tebow in a commercial with his mother during the 2010 Super Bowl.Credit
Focus on The Family

He prayed with inmates, and paused often for them to repeat the words.

“Dear Jesus,” he said, “I know that I am a sinner, and I believe that you died on the cross for me. I put my trust in you and ask you to come into my heart, and forgive me my sins. Thank you for forgiving me and giving me a home in heaven. Thank you. And I will come and live with you someday. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

On Monday, he used a question about his charity work to promote his Tim Tebow Foundation, which is aimed at everything from orphanages to “Timmy’s playrooms” at hospitals.

“Because ultimately I know that’s more important than anything I do on the football field, is the ability to brighten a kid’s day or the ability to make someone smile,” Tebow said.

He seems most comfortable with that sort of proselytizing, and he has found unusual ways to attract attention.

Early in his junior season at Florida in 2008, already wildly famous as a Heisman Trophy winner, Tebow applied the black patches under his eyes that, ostensibly, reduce glare. Using a Sharpie, he wrote on the patches “Phil 4:13.” The Bible verse from Philippians reads, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Tebow wore that message throughout the season.

About three days before the national championship game, however, “God really put it on my heart to change it,” he has said. He joked that Coach Urban Meyer and his teammates were afraid he would jinx the team, but Tebow was unbowed. For the championship game, his eye black read “John 3:16.”

Florida won. And, according to Tebow, 94 million people used Google to find out that the verse reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”

“It was just something little I put under my eyes,” Tebow said in 2010. “I was just trying to be obedient to God and listen to him, and whatever he put on my heart, trying to do. And it’s not like I even knew exactly what I was doing. I was just trying to do the right thing.”

The success, as he measured it, spurred him to change verses under his eyes each game as a senior — after which the N.C.A.A. disallowed the practice. The N.F.L. does not allow personal messages, either.

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Biblical verses on Tebow's eye black for his college games.Credit
Phil Sandlin/Associated Press

It is that aw-shucks persona that bolsters Tebow’s popularity — part everyman, part saint. In 2009, before his senior season, Tebow was asked at a football media event whether he was “saving” himself for marriage. He smiled and answered yes, and joked that the reporters seemed more embarrassed than he did.

Recalling the encounter, Tebow wrote in his book, “I didn’t understand — and still don’t — why it was something that needed to be asked. Since when does anybody else get asked that?”

But he seemed pleased that the subject was raised.

“I realized that young women and men heard my answer and would continue to hear it going forward,” Tebow wrote. “As a result, there was the chance that they might find encouragement in my words and lifestyle to do the same and to wait until they were married to engage in sexual activity.”

The furthest he has delved into politics came during the 2010 Super Bowl, when he and his mother, Pam, starred in a commercial paid for by Focus on the Family. The ad featured Pam making allusions to the story of her difficult pregnancy with “Timmy” while she and her husband, Bob, worked in the Philippines. Doctors recommended an abortion, she said. Instead, she gave birth to Tim.

The ad stirred debate about the appropriateness of political messages during the Super Bowl. Again, Tebow saw something bigger at play.

“They did a survey about three weeks after that commercial aired,” he said in 2010. “And that survey said that five and a half million people, because of that, changed their stance on pro-life.”

Such messages seem to come on his terms. When he was asked about same-sex marriage by a Washington Post reporter during his book tour last year, a publicist interjected and said it was off-topic.

And while Tebow’s name has been invoked often in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and his endorsement could be as powerful as that of any political figure, he has resisted any temptation to show support for a specific candidate.